“We are undergoing a crisis, and if five-star hotels attack the maximum client range four and three-star units, it is an unpleasant but pardonable situation. However, if they come to aim the medium range we will have a real problem,” the Secretary General of the Romanian Hotel Industry Federation (FIHR), Mihai Rasnita, told Business Standard. “The five-star market began approaching a more flexible price policy, the price fell significantly, to €200-250 per room from an average of €360-400. These prices are similar to those practiced by some four and three-star hotels, which means that one can now pay the tariff one used to pay for a three-star hotel in previous years and benefit from a five-star hotel,” the General Manager of the JW Marriott hotel, Kurt Strohmayer, told Business Standard.
A recent study by the CB Richard Ellis Hotels consultancy company indicated that Bucharest had the lowest hotel occupancy rate among Central and Eastern European capitals in the first three months of this year. Thus, the occupancy rate plunged 26.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008, due to the depreciation of the national currency and the economic crisis. “One of the reasons for which Bucharest had such a low occupancy rate is that some Eastern European capitals, such as Vienna and Prague, are not exclusively based on business tourism. This business segment was the first and most affected by the economic crisis, and these capitals are already known to be touristic destinations, where the share of leisure tourism in total revenues is rather significant,” said Strohmayer.
